3,293 research outputs found
Corroding consensus-building: how self-centered public diplomacy is damaging diplomacy and what can be done about it
Public diplomacy (PD) is an activity which has become central to the analysis of modern diplomacy. Yet while there are common definitions of PD widely used internationally, practice between states has come to diverge more and more. There is disagreement in the academic literature about what should be included in PD activities, the actors, and boundaries. But there is little analysis of the effects of PD on mainstream diplomacy. This paper, written by a diplomat and sometime practitioner of PD, argues that PD is losing its connection with wider diplomacy which is based on reciprocity and consensus-building. The digital revolution has enabled PD self-promotion which diminishes the necessity for diplomatic partnering. Global rivalries are played out daily for global publics with little room for quiet reflection and compromise. Such self-centered PD has immersed itself in the confusing and divisive nature of online engagement. While the Internet has brought massive benefits and opportunities to both diplomacy and PD, the consensus-building part of true diplomatic engagement is receding. The activities of ISIS and Russia were just the first major collective challenges to diplomacy through new PD techniques. In the past, diplomacy has responded to crises and conflicts and rebuilt its options. Now PDās chaotic and troubling evolution needs a new response. This should include partners in the non-state sector and the owners of technology platforms. The article takes a practitionerās perspective and proposes a forum where state and non-state experts could discuss appropriate collective responses by diplomacy so it can reassert options available for consensus-building.Accepted manuscrip
Environmental Cross Compliance - Panacea or Placebo?
Environmental Cross Compliance is one policy by means by which government can seek to influence farmers so that they give greater weight to environmental goods in their decisions. The policy is evaluated from both a theoretical and pragmatic viewpoint and its strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The necessary conditions for the success of environmental cross compliance policies are identified and problems with its implementation are highlighted.Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,
Patent Examination Decisions and Strategic Trade Behavior
This paper examines whether strategic trade behavior can explain the fact that the US, Japanese and European Patent Offices Ćā the USPTO, the JPO and the EPO Ćā often make different decisions about whether to grant (or reject) a given patent application. We analyse this issue by considering whether examination decisions across the patent offices vary systematically by inventor nationality, patent quality and technology area using a matched sample of 33,305 non-PCT patent applications granted by the USPTO and subjected to examination decisions at the EPO and the JPO.
On Seismic Imaging: Geodesics, Isochrons, and Fermat's Principle
Analytic expressions are derived for the isochrons in an inhomogeneous medium characterized by a linear velocity gradient and for an anisotropic medium characterized by an elliptical velocity dependence. The results were generated for a single surface source and five wellbore receivers over a dipping interface. The traveltime and reflection-point results appear to be sensitive to a given assumption of the velocity field. In complex geological areas the location of the planar reflector is tangent to the convex hull of isochrons and might not correspond to their intersection points since the two concepts need to coincide
A critical analytic literature review of virtue ethics for social work: beyond codified conduct towards virtuous social work
This submission is based on a critical analytical literature review of the moral paradigm
of virtue ethics and a specific application of this to social work value discourse in search
of lost identity. It echoes the philosophical academy's paradigmatic wars between 'act'
and 'agent' appraisals in moral theory. Act appraisal theories focus on a person's act as
the primary source of moral value whereas agent appraisal theories - whether 'agentprior'
or stricter 'agent-basedā versions - focus on a personās disposition to act morally.
This generates a philosophical debate about which type of appraisal should take
precedence in making an overall evaluation of a person's moral performance. My
starting point is that at core social work is an altruistic activity entailing a deep
commitment, a 'moral impulse', towards the distressed 'other'. This should privilege
dispositional models of value that stress character and good motivation correctly applied
- in effect making for an ethical career built upon the requisite moral virtues. However,
the neo-liberal and neo-conservative state hegemony has all but vanquished the moral
impulse and its correct application. In virtue ethical language, we live in 'vicious' times.
I claim that social workās adherence to act appraisal Kantian and Utilitarian models is
implicated in this loss. Kantian 'deontic' theory stresses inviolable moral principle to be
obeyed irrespective of outcome: Utilitarian 'consequentualist' theory calculates the best
moral outcome measured against principle. The withering of social work as a morally
active profession has culminated in the state regulator's Code of Practice. This makes
for a conformity of behaviour which I call 'proto-ethical' to distinguish it from 'ethics
proper'. The Code demands that de-moralised practitioners dutifully follow policy, rules, procedures and targets - ersatz, piecemeal and simplistic forms of deontic and
consequentualist act appraisals. Numerous inquiries into social work failures indict
practitioners for such behaviour.
I draw upon mainstream virtue ethical theory and the emergent social work counter
discourse to get beyond both code and the simplified under-theoretisation of social work
value. I defend a thesis regarding an identity-defining cluster of social work specific
virtues. I propose two modules: 'righteous indignationā to capture the heartfelt moral
impulse, and 'just generosity' to mindfully delineate the scope and legitimacy of the
former. Their operation generates an exchange relationship with the client whereby the
social worker builds 'surplus value' to give back more than must be taken in the
transaction. I construct a social work specific minimal-maximal 'stability standard' to
anchor the morally correct expression of these two modules and the estimation of
surplus value. In satisficing terms, the standard describes what is good enough but is
also potentially expansive.
A derivative social work practice of moral value is embedded in an historic 'care and
control' dialectic. The uncomfortable landscape is one of moral ambiguity and
paradoxicality, to be navigated well in virtue terms. I argue that it is incongruous to
speak of charactereological social worker virtues and vices and then not to employ the
same paradigm to the clientās moral world. This invites a functional analysis of virtue.
The telos of social work - our moral impulse at work - directs us to scrutiny of the
unsafe household. Our mandate is the well-being of the putative client within,
discoursed in terms of functional life-stage virtues and vicious circumstance.
I employ the allegorical device of a personal ethical journey from interested lay person
to committed social worker, tracking the character-building moral peregrinations. I
focus on two criticisms of virtue ethics - a philosophical fork. It is said that virtue
ethical theory cannot of itself generate any reliable, independently validated action
guidance. In so far as it does, the theory will endorse an as-given, even reactionary,
criterion of right action, making 'virtue and vice' talk the bastion of the establishment
power holders who control knowledge. I seek to repudiate these claims. Given that this
demands a new approach to moral pedagogy, the practical implications for the
suitability and training of social workers are discussed
Host Galaxy Contribution to the Colours of `Red' Quasars
We describe an algorithm that measures self-consistently the relative galaxy
contribution in a sample of radio-quasars from their optical spectra alone.
This is based on a spectral fitting method which uses the size of the
characteristic 4000\AA~ feature of elliptical galaxy SEDs. We apply this method
to the Parkes Half-Jansky Flat Spectrum sample of Drinkwater et al. (1997) to
determine whether emission from the host galaxy can significantly contribute to
the very red optical-to-near-infrared colours observed. We find that at around
confidence, most of the reddening in unresolved (mostly quasar-like)
sources is unlikely to be due to contamination by a red stellar component.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for Publication in Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Societ
Multi-object spectroscopy of the field surrounding PKS 2126-158: Discovery of a z=0.66 galaxy group
The high-redshift radio-loud quasar PKS 2126-158 is found to have a large
number of red galaxies in close apparent proximity. We use the Gemini
Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on Gemini South to obtain optical spectra for
a large fraction of these sources. We show that there is a group of galaxies at
, coincident with a metal-line absorption system seen in the
quasar's optical spectrum. The multiplexing capabilities of GMOS also allow us
to measure redshifts of many foreground galaxies in the field surrounding the
quasar.
The galaxy group has five confirmed members, and a further four fainter
galaxies are possibly associated. All confirmed members exhibit early-type
galaxy spectra, a rare situation for a Mg II absorbing system. We discuss the
relationship of this group to the absorbing gas, and the possibility of
gravitational lensing of the quasar due to the intervening galaxies.Comment: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in press. 10
pages, 8 figure
The use of building simulation within an architectural practice
This paper documents the development and implementation and use of simulation within an architectural practice and reports how its use facilitates the practice's commitment to Sustainable Design
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